


A little nip from every flower

by anonissue



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, absolutely nonsensical old wives' tale remedies, good times good times, hurt/comfort of the one person is ill and miserable type, just bros bro, not timeline compliant, not-kissing, pintrest board recipes are actually surprisingly useful you should check them out sometime, roommates being assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 11:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12231861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonissue/pseuds/anonissue
Summary: Nate finally just up and face-times Mike after Mike sends him one too many questions about how to properly julienne carrots, and the conversation quickly redirects from the actual cooking to the status of Tom's health and how poorly Mike is coping with him being out of action."Trotz had us run different lines yesterday in practice man, and now I'm on Beags' wing, and it's, just," Mike makes an inarticulate frustrated noise as he mashes garlic cloves with the back of a spoon more forcefully than strictly necessary. "It's shit. We suck.""You know," Nate starts and then pauses."What?" Mike prompts after a few seconds of silence."It's stupid, but like, my mom always believed the fastest way to get rid of a cold or whatever was to give it to someone else," Nate says shrugging.--Mike feels like playing hockey without Willy on his line far outweighs the shittiness of being sick. Tom doesn't agree. Mike has to take measures.





	A little nip from every flower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spaceyho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceyho/gifts).



> The number of times the phrase "gay feelios" was used in the plot outline for this is frankly embarrassing to me, but here we all are anyway. At any rate, happy return of hockey my dude -- here's to hoping you find some joy in this silly piece of fluff I whipped up.
> 
> As a heads up, dear readers, this isn't synced to any particular season's timeline, and Tom getting sick is something I completely made-up. Why, you ask? Mostly because I'm a lazy douche. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Title is from "A Spoon Full of Sugar," from Walt Disney's _Mary Poppins_. My main babe coming in clutch with the beta as always, ilu and thanks; this is better for it.

It starts with a sneeze.

Mike's in the kitchen stacking more pancakes onto his plate from where they've been chilling out on the griddle. It's barely nine am, which means what would usually be a fairly uncomplicated test of his hand-eye coordination requires above average concentration to complete. He drops two pancakes on the floor when Tom unleashes a monster of a sneeze in the vicinity of the ping-pong table that Andre practically trips over himself to dodge. Andre dives back and falls into a stack of games piled haphazardly on the floor which Mike thinks is frankly a bit dramatic, but he can see the spray from where Tom managed to very ineffectively cover his mouth all the way from the kitchen. Andre would’ve been doused without taking evasive maneuvers.

Mike raises his eyebrows, a little impressed with the strength of the sneeze.

"Damn bro, bless you," Mike says, as Tom sits up from where he's doubled over. "Need a tissue?"

"I told you to get a flu shot," Andre hisses from the floor. "Don't get me sick."

"I did get one," Tom insists. "I always get run down after getting them though, my immune system's a dick."

Andre scoots a good two feet away from where Tom's sitting and sniffling. "You didn't get one the other day at Walgreens, how do I know you're not making shit up --"

"Dude," Tom says, rolling his eyes. “You’re being extra dramatic about this, what the hell.”

Mike takes the opportunity to slink back over to the table with his food, still half asleep. "Nah, he did -- we both had to when we did the book reading thing at Johns Hopkins last week, medical staff insisted."

Andre still looks unrelentingly suspicious, aggressively so as he steals a few pancakes from Mike's pile before gathering his things and heading towards his room. "Call me when you're setting up to head out to skate."

"Oh come on," Tom grouses. "Since when do you give that much of a shit about sneezing --"

"You don't remember flu season last year?" Mike asks him. "He didn't come out of his room for like two months."

"I thought that was just because he was shy," Tom boggles.

"Nah dude," Mike shrugs. "He doesn't like germs."

"I'm not even sick, though," Tom tries to say before being interrupted by another series of sneezes effectively undermining his point.

Mike looks at him skeptically while chewing through a partially burnt pancake. He nudges the napkin holder over to where Tom's sitting because they might not have a box of tissues between the three of them, but napkins work fine on double-duty. They eat off their ping-pong table, they’re champs at double-duty efficiency.

"Blow your nose," Mike says. "It’s leaking, and it's gross as fuck."

"You blow your nose," Tom rejoinders nonsensically, but wipes at his face halfheartedly with a syrup-soiled napkin before returning to his food.

 

It escalates.

Tom's shitting his brains out within a day, practically shackled to the half-bathroom. Andre is acting like Tom is patient zero for the zombie apocalypse. There are now imposed quarantine and isolation protocols which Mike thinks are frankly really over the top. Especially so, since Mike has been left mitigating the entire situation. Andre has made like a ghost and all but disappeared from their common spaces unless he really can’t help it. Mitigation is generally speaking not Mike's forte. He feels entirely out of his depth, and it sucks.

"You need another bottle of water?"

"I need a new asshole," comes the pained voice of Tom from the Tom-shaped lump of blankets on Tom's bed.

Mike's cracked open the door and has relegated himself to staring sadly at Tom from far away instead of going in there and staring sadly at Tom from closer-up. Andre has made it perfectly clear that if Mike still wants free reign of the house, Mike can't go inside Tom's bedroom. Mike missed the memo on when they collectively handed control of their apartment over to Andre's paranoia, but before he can fall down that rabbit-hole of annoyance, a sick-sounding groan from the bed interrupts Mike's thoughts.

"Again?" Mike asks incredulously.

"Again," Tom says desperately unwrapping himself from blankets and moving with speed and intent.

Mike dodges out of the way of Tom, who sprints for the bathroom. He guesses that he’s probably in too close a proximity to satisfy the rules of Andre's quarantine, but what Andre doesn't know won't hurt him.

Mike knocks against the door of the bathroom after a minute or two. He doesn't really expect an answer from within, but says, "dude this really sucks" because solidarity is important.

Mike says it with feeling, too, because he really does mean it.

Tom's muffled, "You're telling me, dude," makes its way through the barrier of the door.

"I'll go on a toilet paper run," Mike sighs. "And I'll pick up some Imodium. Just sit tight."

"I'm not going anywhere for a while," Tom laughs, and it's a sad, pained sound.

There’s an abrupt flurry of irritated sounding Swedish as Andre exits his room, phone attached to his ear. He stops short, looking with narrowed eyes between where Mike's sitting on the floor next to the bathroom door and the bathroom door itself. Mike holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"I'm just seeing if he's OK."

"Quarantine," Andre sighs, sounding for the world like a frustrated parent trying to deal with two problematic children.

"I'm allowed to speak to him," Mike rolls his eyes. "I can't get sick from the sound of his voice, Jesus."

" _Jag skulle inte vara så säker_ ," Andre says snidely. And then: "I told Nicke he can't play, Nicke will tell Trotz."

Mike deflates a little at that, Tom being scratched making him sad in a way that being healthy scratched himself hadn't even managed to. Mike understands that sometimes when your hockey sucks, or when you get injured playing hockey, you get scratched. Getting scratched because you're too sick to play always seems like such a betrayal, your body undermining your heart or something like that. Mike makes up his mind then and there to do whatever he can to make sure Tom gets better fast, starting with this pharmacy run.

"We need to be leaving for practice in twenty minutes," Andre tosses over his shoulder as Mike grabs his wallet and keys, still on the phone with Nicky. "Hurry up."

"Don't be a dick," Mike yells back. "Or I'll make sure we're late."

Mike closes the door on Andre's look of surprised outrage and feels a little better than he did before heading out.

 

It sticks around.

Tom is sick for two days, three days, four -- he misses two games, looks to be gunning for a third. Trotz makes concerned faces, Andre bitches, the guys miss him, and Mike is totally out of ideas.

Mike's in the middle of following what amounts to a weirdly specific anti-flu soup recipe from Brandi’s Pintrest board at the suggestion of Braden since it's a rest day. He’s sending periodic Snaps of his progress to Nate for input. Mike can count on Nate to be supportive and non-judgmental of his efforts to get Tom up to playing snuff again, plus Nate actually has a far better idea of how to, like, not burn boiling water, so Nate's involvement in this project is one of both support and active disaster prevention. Nate finally just up and face-times Mike after Mike sends him one too many questions about how to properly julienne carrots, and the conversation quickly redirects from the actual cooking to the status of Tom's health and how poorly Mike is coping with him being out of action.

"Trotz had us run different lines yesterday in practice man, and now I'm on Beags' wing, and it's, just," Mike makes an inarticulate frustrated noise as he mashes garlic cloves with the back of a spoon more forcefully than strictly necessary. "It's shit. We suck."

"You’re also terrible at dealing with change," Nate sighs on the other end.

He seems to be folding laundry, but Mike's honestly not paying all that much attention to what Nate's doing. Normally, losing track of something like that would make Mike feel a little guilty, a little like he wasn't paying enough attention to Nate's life and Nate's problems, but he's currently four days deep into crisis here and pretty much incapable of dealing with anything that isn't the fact that Tom's debilitated and not playing hockey with Mike like he’s supposed to be doing.

"I just need him back on the ice man, this blows," Mike says seriously, stopping what he's doing to look at Nate, willing him to understand the depth of his feelings on the matter.

Nate raises his eyebrows and hums in a considerate fashion.

"You know," he starts and then pauses.

"What?" Mike prompts after a few seconds of silence.

"It's stupid, but like, my mom always believed the fastest way to get rid of a cold or whatever was to give it to someone else," Nate says shrugging.

"Really?" Mike says, pausing in his assault on the food in front of him. "That works?"

"I mean, I don't know," Nate hedges. "I think it's an old wives' tale, one of those correlation-causation situations. Half the time the person probably just gets over whatever was making them sick around the time that proximity to other people results in the other people getting sick. But hey, how desperate are you?"

Mike looks at the mess of pulverized garlic in front of him. He's only ever tried to cook three times before -- twice for his mom's birthday and once because he had to for a home-ec class he then immediately dropped out of. Also that time for the PR video with Tom, but he never counts that because PR and spending time with Tom. All things considered, he thinks it'd be fair to categorize himself as relatively desperate.

With that in mind, he begins to formulate a plan of attack.

 

Mike's no genius but he figures that if he maximizes his exposure to Tom's germs and volunteers to do all the necessary in-house interaction with Tom, the combined effect will likely yield the best results. It's a relatively unscientific approach, but Mike doesn't have time for science. It's going on a week of Tom being out of commission, and Andre's erstwhile militant disease prevention tactics are starting to grate on Mike, his desire to remain civil wearing thin.

Mike doesn't like getting angry unless it’s as a last resort, and however prissy he may find Andre's methods, he can appreciate not wanting to get as sick as Tom. Ironic, perhaps, given how Mike is now trying to get himself sick to get Tom better, but Mike has accepted in his heart that not playing hockey is actually slightly more preferable to not playing hockey with Tom. That might actually be pathetic, but it isn't something he intends to examine all that closely anytime in the near future.

Andre wanders into the bathroom while Mike's brushing his teeth to grab a floss pick from the medicine cabinet. Andre pauses suddenly and looks at Mike, eyes darting between Mike’s face and Mike’s hand.

"Is that Willy's toothbrush?"

"No," Mike mumbles out in between strokes, willing his face into the picture of innocence.

"But yours has Ninja Turtles on it," Andre says slowly, like he's trying to piece together clues. "The one you’re using is Batman themed."

Mike shrugs.

"Willy loves Batman," Andre continues.

"I borrowed one from his pack, mine fell in the toilet," Mike says, some toothpaste dribbling down the side of his face from the effort of speaking around a mouthful of foam.

The grossness of the display is apparently off-putting enough that Andre chooses to leave the bathroom with a grimace instead of pursuing the line of questioning. Mike grins to himself as soon as Andre is out of his line of sight, and allows himself a self-congratulatory fist pump. That's one disease vector down, Mike thinks. Before today’s deep-web Googling of how to contract diseases, he might not have known what the fuck a disease vector was, but knowledge is power. He'll tackle Tom's bedroom next.

 

Waiting until Tom is no longer in his own bedroom winds up being more of a procedure than Mike bargains for, but despite the odds and the awkward dance of hiding from someone inside of his own apartment, Mike manages it. Andre's out shopping, Tom's showering, which leaves Mike as much time as he's likely to get to expose himself to whatever he can get his hands on inside Tom’s infectious hot zone.

Mike takes in the room's disarray with exclusive focus. There's a deplorable amount of dirty laundry in randomly scattered piles all over the place, the vaguely sour smell of stale sweat and poorly-cleaned vomit saturating the air, but Mike clamps down on the urge to open a window or straighten things up; Tom will know he was in here if he does either.

Mike puzzles over figuring out what in the room has had the most exposure to Tom's bodily fluids recently -- there's a pile of used tissues by Tom's desk which Mike... is going to leave the fuck alone; even he has a boundaries when it comes to this mission. But with that decided, what to check out next becomes a little bit of a mystery. There's a Tom-shaped dent in the bed, pillows rumpled, and unbidden, an image from earlier in the week -- Tom coddled in a pile of his own bedding -- comes to the forefront of Mike's mind, and well. Maybe. If Tom is spending all his time in those sheets, there'd be enough of his germs on his pillows and sheets for Mike to successfully expose himself to whatever's been plaguing his roommate the last few days.

Mike crosses and then uncrosses his arms, darting a look towards the door. No movement, not even a hint of noise outside in the hall to indicate Tom's return.

"Fuck it," Mike mutters mostly to himself -- and besides in context, rolling around in his bud's bed isn't really _that_ weird -- and then just dives on into the flannel-covered expanse of Tom's bed.

He gets maybe a good two or three minutes of just rubbing his face back and forth on Tom's pillow. Tom's shampoo smells very good actually? Not floral, but like wood, cedar? Maybe? -- but enough that Mike makes a mental note to ask Tom what brand he uses, when an incredulous:

"Dude, what the _hell_?"

from the direction of the door stops Mike full-on mid nuzzle.

"You're supposed to be in the shower," is what, embarrassingly enough, comes out of Mike's mouth.

Mike winces at himself, abruptly sitting up on Tom's bed, face heating up in what is unmistakably a blush.

"Yeah, I forgot my loofah, exfoliation’s important -- why are you in my bed?"

"Nate said I had to get sick--"

"Nate? _Nate_?"

"Bro, just go with it, c'mon, we need you back playing on the line."

"You think I'm not trying to get better? That I haven't tried everything that I can think of? Also, fuck -- when did Nate come up from Hershey --"

"No, he was walking me through how to make you Garlic Miracle Soup from Holts’ wife’s Pintrest board, and anyway, we scrapped that project because this one sounds more legit," Mike sighs, working a hand through his hair and struggling with the reflex to pull on it just a little bit out of rising frustration. "Bro, seriously, you gotta get me sick."

Tom looks like he's preparing to rally against what at least as far as Mike's concerned still seems like the best idea bar none, when Tom’s ability to speak is overtaken by a coughing fit. Mike is a little slow to spring into action, only managing to slide off the bed and stumble over to where Tom's standing for the last wheeze or so. He fans the air in the surrounding six inch bubble of Tom's face towards his own. Tom looks utterly distraught.

"Dude," he says sounding genuinely distressed. "Please stop. My stomach still isn't right and it's been days, you don't want this bug."

"I'd rather you be playing hockey than me trying to navigate Beagle's right wing for one more damn practice," Mike insists. "Maybe breathe on me for a little bit?"

"I'm not doing that Mike," Tom says.

Mike takes note he sounds kind of serious about that. He hadn’t counted on Tom being completely uncooperative. "I mean, licking me might work better in a shorter period of time --"

"Mikey, no," Tom sighs. "Just get out of my room before Andre comes home and realizes you've violated his quarantine --"

"Willy, you gotta do something to work with me here," Mike says, latching on to Tom's elbows.

Tom opens his mouth like he's going to say something, but pauses -- Mike can tell from the way his nose scrunches up suddenly than he's about to sneeze violently. Mike will blame it on temporary insanity later, but right now it feels like a god-given opportunity. Tom takes a step back to turn his head, so Mike lunges forwards, grabs Tom’s face and shoves his face towards him just as Tom sneezes.

It’s not a kiss.

Well, Mike considers, depending on how long Tom lets them sit here mouth to mouth, it might start encroaching on not-buddies territory pretty soon and actually maybe Mike should actually do something about that since his desperate tactics seem to have offlined Tom’s brain entirely --

Mike steps back, and tries to ignore the fact that Tom’s lips were noticeably softer than the last girls’ he kissed.

“Mikey,” Tom says after a few more seconds of stunned silence.

“Desperate times,” Mike manages to squeak out despite the rising blush threatening to overwhelm his face and then bolts for the door like goddamn coward.  


 

Andre walks in the door about two hours later while Mike’s doing his rotation of the dinner cooking for the week.

Mike’s aware his responses to Andre’s routine questions about how his day-off went are a stilted wreck, and that he’s definitely not doing his share of the social heavy lifting for dinner-time conversation when he kind of forgets to ask about Andre’s day in kind, but he’s still too preoccupied with Tom’s dumb face, and Tom’s dumb state of health, and the way Tom’s dumb jaw stubble had scratched across his fingers when he held him still for his last-ditch cold acquisition measures.

Mike’s definitely still refusing to call it a kiss.

“You OK?” Andre finally asks, sounding a little put-out.

Mike’s about half-way through a haphazard attempt at plating the chicken parm he’s just taken out of the oven, so Andre’s question catches him off-guard. He hisses slightly as he mishandles the pan and burns his fingers.

“Yeah, I’m just,” Mike mumbles around where he’s sucking on the injured digits. “I don’t know, tired? I guess? I’ve been feeling kind of run down.”

“Mike, if you even _suspect_ you’ve caught whatever bullshit Tom has --”

“I know, I know,” Mike rolls his eyes. “I’ll lock myself in my room if I’m still feeling shitty tomorrow, mom, Jesus. Eat your fucking food.”

Mike slides him a plate, which Andre steps to the counter to retrieve giving Mike some massive side-eye.

“Go tell Willy food’s up,” Mike waves, as he sits down with his own portion.

“You go do it --"

“I cooked,” Mike insists around a too-hot mouthful. “You’re up bud.”

Andre huffs, but stomps off to do it. Mike can hear his “food’s ready, Mike left you a wrapped plate on the counter” travel down the hallway, although if Tom replies, Mike can’t make it out. Tom might me mad or whatever at him right now, but he made chicken parm specifically because it’s Tom’s favorite, and even if Tom doesn’t say anything, Mike likes to think he’ll be pleased once he comes out of hiding to see what’s waiting for him.

By the time Andre and Mike have shoved everything in the dishwasher, Andre’s fucked off to his room, and Mike emerges freshly showered, shaved, and ready for bed from the bathroom, he notices that the plate he left out for Tom’s disappeared from the counter. He stops by Tom’s door on the way back to his, his hand hovering in the air for a moment before Mike decides to stop being an asshole and just say goodnight like he always does.

He knocks a few times, a light from behind the door spilling out from the bottom crack enough to make him confident that Tom hasn’t gone to bed yet, and calls out: “Feel better buddy.”

He waits a second for a response, but doesn’t get one. Mike tells himself that doesn’t really mean anything, but shuffles off to bed feeling slightly deflated.

 

Morning brings Mike stumbling out of his bedroom to the smell of bacon, which is odd because neither himself nor Andre can actually make turkey bacon successfully taste good and crispy and like a presentable, dietician-approved alternative to actual pork-laden goodness; only Tom has that precise skillset and --

\-- and that’s definitely Tom standing in the kitchen making turkey bacon.

He looks good, he looks -- healthy, Mike’s brain supplies after a second stuttering over the sight of his best friend in the kitchen after more than a week’s worth of him being holed up in his room.

“Uh,” Mike says. “Good morning?”

“Morning,” Tom grins. “I felt one-hundred after waking-up, so like whatever -- maybe your dipshit plan worked.”

“No fever?”

“Nope,” Tom says. “And no stomach shit either, for 24 hours now.”

“Huh,” Mike says, scrubbing a hand through his hair and fumbling forwards towards the counter stools. “Funny, I feel OK still.”

“Maybe I just got over it then? Or maybe the Tamiflu worked finally?”

“Maybe,” Mike says.

He glances at Tom who seems to be comfortable with Mike in the kitchen, and in relatively close proximity to him. He looks for telltale signs of tension or irritation in the lines of Tom’s shoulders and back but finds none. Still, he feels somewhat obligated to ask -- “Tom, are we good buddy?”

“Yeah dude,” Tom shrugs, turns to look at Mike. He smiles, a little dopey, but it’s a sight for sore eyes and something in Mike’s stomach unclenches. “We’re good.”

Andre’s door creaks open, effectively tabling any further discussion of Mike’s earlier antics by unspoken agreement. He pads out sleepy and ruffled, his hair sticking out in a jagged cowlick. He collapses into a chair by the ping-pong table before even truly registering that the apartment living space is in full complement. Even once he does, all Andre seems to be able to muster up is a vaguely confused facial expression.

“You’re feeling better?” he asks Tom, voice cracking from disuse.

Tom nods, giving him the thumbs up.

“You kind of look like shit though,” Mike comments while pouring himself a glass of orange juice.

Andre sighs, stretching before bundling himself further into a large hoodie. “Yeah didn’t sleep well,” he explains.

Mike narrows his eyes at him, taking in the way he’s overdressed for the apartment’s September heatwave.

“You feeling cold, bro?” Mike asks as nonchalantly as possible, as Andre sniffs around what sounds like the start of some tell-tale nasal congestion.

“AC’s up high in my room is all,” he explains, face twisting.

“I don’t know man, you sure you’re not running a fever?” Tom asks, catching on as he starts to fry up eggs in the large skillet he fishes down from the cabinets.

Andre looks like he’s about to argue, when a sudden fit of sneezing overtakes him violently. Mike counts out five, before Andre scrambles for a tissue to blow his nose into. “And you always boast about how you don’t get allergies, kid.”

“Goddamnit,” Andre manages, once he’s done. “ _Fy fan_ \--”

Andre stumbles back from the table and towards his room as sneezing overtakes him again.

“Quarantine,” Mike calls out to him as he beats his retreat down the hall, and Tom laughs.

Andre flips him off before disappearing into his room and slamming the door, leaving Mike and Tom snickering in his wake.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, they took care of Andre while he was sick too because he's their small rookie child, and also Nicky would've kicked their collective asses and their fear of Nicky's wrath is pretty significant.
> 
> No content warnings on this. If you notice any errors, feel free to point em out in the comments and I'll try to take care of them when I can.


End file.
